Reward for a long week

The sprawling grounds of Los Tajibos Hotel and Convention Center, where Sonya and I rent an apartment, is where many of Santa Cruz's fancy social functions are held. From behind our glass sliding door, we've watched The Beautiful People come and go and, frankly, felt a little left out.
So on my way back from a tough class last night, I noticed a sign announcing an event titled "A date with Johnny Walker." Johnny and I hadn't hung for awhile and I thought we should catch up. I roused Sonya from her verb conjugating and the two of us, dressed in our EuroTrash finest, walked 30 feet to the party. Turns out Johnny Walker had visited the night before. This night, however, was hosted by his very friendly Scottish cousin, Chivas Regal. It was a runway show highlighting "Bolivia's high fashion" and was quite easy to sneak right in.
As usual in Santa Cruz's fancy social scene, Sonya was the brownest guest by several hues.
An announcer informed us that the night was dedicated to five homes for child burn victims. Several of the waxy-faced Botoxed guests looked like they were the beneficiaries, but otherwise we saw no hint that any money was being raised for the cause and no sign of any literature being distributed. Who wants to ruin a party with pictures of burn victims anyway!
The whole affair (free drinks) was grand until the fashion show started. Fashion shows, we learned very quickly, are quite boring. After about 15 minutes we retreated to our Botox-free apartment.
(Click photo to enlarge)

disculpenme

Apologies to our four regular readers for a dearth in posts. Classes started for real this week and I've learned that teaching is no joke. It's been taking me about six hours to prepare each 1.5-hour class and I've got five each week. My boss at UPSA initially said I'd be teaching one section of seniors and co-teaching a freshman class. My co-professor, after a meeting Wednesday, decided he wasn't interested in sharing a class and dumped the whole thing on me, so I had about 12 hours to begin preparing a curriculum. This happened at what is said to be one of the best universities in Bolivia.
About four of my 30 or so students want to be reporters. The rest are interested in corporate communications and various forms of public relations. Very few read newspapers. I threw my first of several regular news quizzes at them last night and they failed to answer many basic current affair questions...like naming the four presidential candidates. Most couldn't name even one!

What tha?

My reporting led me to Sunday Mass in a small town of 30,000 about two-hours outside of Santa Cruz. The city of Yapacani has been a crossroads for coca growers and narcotraficantes and legitimate day laborers in the soy and rice fields. Yapacani's frequent blockades by union thugs and it's high murder rate and active red light district lend it a feeling of lawlessness, of The Wild West.
So given this setting and the fact that I was in a CATHOLIC MASS, I found it very incongruous to hear the priest lead the congregation in a very familiar song: Shalom Aleichem. For those of you who weren't with us when we crossed the Red Sea, that is a Jewish song.